1 Sam. 17:46

"This day the Lord will deliver you (Goliath) into my hands...that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel."

David was young. He had never been a soldier. But he knew God and he knew that God’s reputation among the nations was at stake. David understood too, that his victory over Goliath would be powerful testimony to Yahweh’s power and glory. This same God still yearns to bring men and women from all peoples to Himself.

Lead us, Lord, in Your triumph as we minister blessings in Your Name.

Muslim Kurds of Iraq

“You cannot grow good crops in a soil of hatred,” a journalist remarked. Yet today Iraqi Kurdistan is a soil of ethnic hatred, as Kurds seek to retake their land from Arabs, Turkmen and Assyrian Christians. They would also like to form a Kurdish nation out of the Muslim countries of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey. Perhaps remembering that Saladin the Kurd once controlled their lands, Muslim leaders take such threats seriously.

In Iraq, many Kurds see oil-rich Kirkuk as “our Jerusalem.” Like Jerusalem, Kirkuk is a contested city. Unlike Jerusalem, however, the contest is over oil and houses, not sacred sites. Iraq’s four million Kurds are not united. What they do have in common, however, is distrust of others; and a desire for independence, self-determination, and building a new Kurdish nation.

Pray that God will prepare the soil of Kurdish Iraqis for a gospel harvest. Pray that the few Kurdish Christians will be built up in the faith and thrust out to reach their Muslim neighbors. Pray that the historic Christian churches will respond to the Spirit’s call to reach out to Kurds. Pray that the Kurdish peoples in Iraq will hear the Spirit’s call and read His Word in their dialects and respond with repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.-TP